Jailbreaking the Apple iPad

So after all the hype you've got an iPad, I guess you'll be wanting to break it then? Jailbreak it, that is, so as to set it free from Apple imposed restrictions and allow you to install non-approved software. Jailbreaking is popular amongst iPhone users, and has been since soon after the original iPhone device appeared on the scene, so it was only ever going to be a matter of time before the same thing happened to the newly launched iPad. After all, it uses a tweaked version of the iPhone OS. However, the Apple world has been taken somewhat by surprise at just how quickly the first successful jailbreaking has occurred. Heck, the iPad has only been on sale for two days and already it has been hacked, cracked and pwned by those in the know as this YouTube video footage reveals.

It is not known how many people have currently got a jailbroken iPhone, but it is doubtful that huge numbers of the 300,000 people across America who pre-ordered and took delivery of their iPads on day one will be wanting to void the warranty and start hacking the hardware so early in the ownership game. Not least as first iPad jailbreak appears to be something of a development demo rather than a commercial or even Beta product right now. What's more, given that this particular pwning seems to be based upon a bug that has been used to jailbreak iPhone OS 3.1 the chances are that it will get picked up and blocked sharpish by Apple, as is the way with such things. Traditionally there is a race to find and fix jailbreak bugs and exploits between the respective developers.